Issue #37 - Fall in love with customers

Marcin Treder said this week on Twitter that “falling in love with your competitors leads to a mediocre design. Falling in love with your customers leads to the passionate experience.”

I know so many people that need to heed this advice! Whatever industry you’re in, I bet there are people within your organisation that want to take what they deem the best bits from the market leader and somehow incorporate it into the business.

I love this frank account from Singapore-based designer Nina Geometrieva. A key takeaway for me while I’m on my current project: “Yes, sometimes uglier design can perform better. And this is the ultimate proof that design is not only about aesthetics, it’s also about usability, clarity, affordance.” Great insight!

Simon Hurst has just joined the team at CoopDigital as a user researcher. Here, he shares the methods of conducting research, what roles he fulfills and about taking people along for the journey. Good luck Simon - you’re going to be supported by a great team!

The design process is a collaborative effort and can often change over time. Matt Olpinski recognises that “many clients hire designers to execute beautiful work, not to solve problems.” More education to clients is needed. It is far better to present a solution than the end-product design. No more “ta-dah” design please!

Shopify outfit We Make Websites weighs up the pros and cons of Britain’s exit from the European Union. What is clear though is “Brexit represents the biggest change to UK trading and economic conditions for at least a decade.” Fact is, nobody knows what’s next, but an interesting account nonetheless.

“"We’re pretty much the first company offering direct-to-consumer free shipping on small quantities,” [Josh] Ostrovsky says, adding that he wanted to entice more customers by making it easier for them to order from one portal.“ Josh isn’t following competitors when it comes to selling wine, and so far, it’s working.

Live chat can prevent basket abandonment, by letting you talk with customers and understanding where they are finding friction. They can also serve as feedback-loops for an iterative design process. Quick tool tip: I’d suggest using Intercom!

For remote workers, it’s often difficult to tell where home ends and where work begins. I found this when I freelanced full-time many years ago. Eventually moving to an office helped in some ways, but not others. Good to hear other peoples experiences though.

Both my children have old iPhones to play games on (WiFi only). As I can’t compare with my own childhood, it’s really hard to know whether this is a good or bad move. And with Pokémon Go taking over our household, when and should we move them over to phone contracts?